Want a new Avid compatible with my old

[Shane Ross]

I cut with that system about 3 years ago…and then it was a pain in the patoot! We couldn’t interface with the computer at all. No USB, no firewire. It had SCSI, but we didn’t have any devices that meshed with it, it has ZIP and floppy…we didn’t. So there’s that.

It captures as OMFI..the new Avid software captures as MXF. The are about as incompatible media wise as you get. You can still cut on the 7.5 systems, and then decompose and create a bin that a later Avid can open, but there is no way to share media. Even if you could somehow find a connection that both machines could use.

Avid is right…not possible.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Michael Hancock]

[Shane Ross] “It captures as OMFI..the new Avid software captures as MXF. The are about as incompatible media wise as you get.”

On the new Avid’s you can choose to capture OMF or MXF. It defaults to MXF. Just go to your Media Creation settings and switch your new Avid to capture to OMF.

That said, though, you’re wanting to go way back version wise. There may be resolution compatability issues, and even getting the footage from one system to the other, as Shane noted, will be a pain.

Michael.

[Shane Ross]

[Michael Hancock] “On the new Avid’s you can choose to capture OMF or MXF. It defaults to MXF. Just go to your Media Creation settings and switch your new Avid to capture to OMF.”

Really? Interesting. Well, at least I was partly right.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Shane Ross]

[Michael Hancock] “On the new Avid’s you can choose to capture OMF or MXF. It defaults to MXF. Just go to your Media Creation settings and switch your new Avid to capture to OMF.”

Really? Interesting. Well, at least I was partly right.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Katie Van]

Thanks for your help guys

[Adam Bernardi]

Katie,
We have a similar situation here, but we’re on mostly Meridien Avids, one generation newer than your PPC Avids. Michael is right, you can tell your newer Avid to capture OMF, but I don’t remember what resolutions your version Avid uses. I believe the newer Avids will like any of the Meridien resolutions, i.e. 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 10:1, 20:1, 2:1s, 4:1s, 15:1s, 4:1m and 10:1m. If your version is using those AVR’s you might be alright. But if your using the older AVR’s, what were they?…AVR77, 70, etc. That probably won’t work.
Also, keep in mind, if you do anything to your clips or sequences in the new Avid that the old one doesn’t understand, then you’ll have problems. For instance, the new Avids can handle 24bit sound files, the old ones only 16bit. So if you import something at 24bit in the new Avid, you won’t even be able to open the bin in the old Avid, and you also risk some serious file corruption to boot. We’ve had a lot of that. In fact, since most of our Avid’s are Meridien’s, we have been using our newer Avid chiefly to capture and output. It’s a waste, I know, but until we upgrade that’s the way it is.
Hope this helps

[Katie Van]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your response.

So in your case it sounds like it is possible to exchange projects between the different systems? Someone I spoke to at Avid said once a project had been opened and saved by the newer version it would not be readable by the older. I know this is how Final Cut works.

Are you able to have both systems accessing the media at once? Like a Unity situation.

I apologize for my ignorance (I really know fcp better) but really appreciate your help!

[Job Ter burg]

Actually, you might be able to pull it off.

Here’s the thing: the ABVB-based MediaComposer 7.x was one of the best editing stations Avid ever released. Rock solid, feature rich. It was a milestone. Since these machines are pretty old, you won’t have USB and such. That does not make the machine a dog, IMO.

MC7.x was based on the ABVB board, and does not handle Meridien resolutions (2:1, 10:1, 14:1p and such), but the older Avid ABVB-based AVR resolutions, labeled AVR3s, AVR12, AVR77, and such.

The upside is that modern MC’s can still READ and PLAYBACK those resolutions (but cannot create them). One issue I found was that functions like Relink don’t take into account the “foreign” resolutions.

Generally, it is wiser to share bins than it is to share projects, when sharing between different revisions. Projects are slightly more complex. Often it works, but there’s little gain, and it would be easier to exchange bins.

Also, the 7.2v4 release was meant to create project/bin compatibility with the (then newer) Meridien systems. In those days, I was often offlining on a Meridien system, and onlining on a system just like yours, using that 7.2v4 revision. Worked fine.

However, I’m not sure about how compatible the latest releases are with the old bins and projects. For one, you’d have to consider that there are loads of features in the newer version that the older version didn’t have and therefore will not recognise. However, why not do a simple test, and try to open a bin with some footage and one with sequences, created on a current MC system, and see if your ABVB system will read them.

As for exhanging media, it should be possible, as long as you use SCSI media. That would mean including a SCSI board on the newer system, or using an intermediate system that has both SCSI and FireWire, and transferring all media from one system to the next. However, any media created on the new system would not be recognisable on the old system.

For the exhange of bins, you might use a network, or if you can find an old SCSI-based CD-Recorder (I might have one in the basement), you might use CD-RW. Or use a USB floppy drive on the Powerbook, and keep your bins under 1.4 MB 😉 (the smiley means: you won’t have any sequence bins created in current MC’s that are that small).

From what I’ve heard is that FCP projects and sequences between various revisions of FCP are completely incompatible. Avid bins are generally way more upwards/backwards compatible between different revisions of the software. I’ve shared stuff between MC10 and MC7, between MC5 and MC7, MC11 and various Adrenalines, MC12 and AXP 4.6 and 4.8.

Another thing to consider is that if you need to use multiple systems, and you are currently relying on the ABVB system, you might try and spring up some cash to get a new MC-soft, a Mac or PC and a Mojo or Mojo SDI, and have all ABVB features on a more versatile, faster more current system, for a fraction of the original cost of the ABVB system, and use a laptop with MC-Soft to go with that.

It’s a little depending on how complex your workflow demands are going to be.

Hope this helps.